


I pray you, love, remember

by Lexigent



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 14:01:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12583460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexigent/pseuds/Lexigent
Summary: It's summer, shortly before Laertes goes away to uni. Ophelia steals him away for a hike, a picnic, and more.A modern AU take with a focus on Ophelia.





	I pray you, love, remember

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jungle_ride](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jungle_ride/gifts).



"All packed up," Ophelia said and looked and the backpack with a satisfied expression. "Ready to rumble?" - "You mean, am I ready to picnic? Yes, I think so." 

Laertes' hand darted out and he picked an apple from atop an arrangement of sandwiches, juice, and cereal bars before Ophelia could close the zipper. He bit into it with a smirk as Ophelia hit him on the arm playfully. 

"Picnic is outside, you fool. And you have to earn it." She zipped the backpack with force and heaved it onto her shoulders. Her fingers felt for a ridge along the bottom – Laertes' going-away gift. She had poured long hours of summer into it and hoped to give it to him during the picnic. 

"Come on! The brook underneath the willows is so pretty this time of year." She pushed a stray strand of hair out of her face and made for the door. She could hear her brother behind her, crunching his teeth into the apple as they walked. They'd stolen this day from fencing practice and back-to-school preparation and most of all from Pol and Hamlet, who seemingly had no other topic of conversation than Laertes' impending first semester at uni. 

"Text me lots of pictures when you get there, won't you?" Ophelia tried hard to sound cheerful. 

"Oh, not you too," Laertes sighed. 

"Well, it's a big step. It'll be strange not having you here." 

"Yes, but – I'm still here now, aren't I? And you'll have Hamlet to... keep you company when I'm gone." His voice was harsh. Ophelia looked at him. "It's not like that." 

"Then what is it like?" 

Ophelia sighed. "Like something I don't want to talk about when I'm out walking with my brother who I'm not going to see for the next six months." 

Both were silent for a moment. Finally Laertes turned to her. His face was very soft. 

"I didn't mean - look, you keep your secrets, just don't do anything stupid." And a little later, "Friends?" Ophelia had to laugh at the childish gesture, but she shook his hand all the same. "Friends." 

They walked on in companionable silence. The tension dissipated as they got further into the forest. Here, every acorn, every tree, every blade of grass was infused with childhood memories. They were soon pointing out sites of falls and knee injuries, past summers' huts, tree houses, and bird feeders. 

They both exclaimed when they found the childish carvings of initials and height measurements on one of their favourite trees. They stood in front of it, tracing the carvings with their fingers. 

"You were taller than me at one point," said Laertes. "Can you imagine?" 

"I can, actually, I was there," said Ophelia. 

There were carvings for Hamlet on the tree. Even back then, he had been around them constantly, for better or for worse. And now, Laertes thought, his sister was beginning to grow fonder of him by the day. It was not an attraction he felt especially happy about. 

"And to think that Hamlet..." Laertes began, about to make a comment about love hearts and initials, but thinking better of it halfway. His voice trailed off as Ophelia turned towards him. "To think that Hamlet what?" "Nothing," said Laertes, a bit too quickly, and looked at his feet. 

Ophelia frowned at him and turned again. "Suit yourself," she muttered. Sometimes she wished her brother would just come out with things rather than brood on them for fifty years. It was plain for anyone who had eyes that he didn't like it that she spent so much time with Hamlet, but it wasn't as if he'd been around lots, and Ophelia didn't have nearly as much to do as him. 

They trod on. Ophelia loved the feel of the summer breeze on her skin, which was starting to develop a sheen of sweat. 

They reached their destination after two hours of hiking through the forest, across small brooks and up and down the undulating landscape. Ophelia set the backpack down and unclamped the picnic blanket from its holster. She spread it underneath a clump of willows by the stream, then unpacked their provisions. 

Laertes, bless him, tried to give her a hand but was more in the way than he was useful. It was always odd how even now, three years after she'd returned home from her year-long stay in an institution, he treated her as the fragile, underweight thirteen-year-old who couldn't be convinced that she deserved food. 

She plopped herself down on one corner of the blanket and bit into her first sandwich with relish. She caught Laertes' eye. There was a tenderness there that she had never seen before, and something else besides. Something she had supposed was there for quite some time. It frightened and thrilled her all the same. 

Before long, they were lying on their backs on the blanket, Ophelia's head next to Laertes' feet. Ophelia squinted up into the sunlight as it played on the willow branches that were moving in the breeze. She gently nudged Laertes' shoulder with her foot. 

"Don't fall asleep in the sun, brother. Remember what happened last time?" 

Laertes snorted. "Not something one forgets in a hurry." 

Ophelia chuckled. "You looked like a boiled lobster for a week." 

"Felt like one too." Laertes lifted up his upper body so that he rested on his elbows. 

"Can't leave you alone, can we." Ophelia winked at him as she rose to her feet. She'd chosen the words deliberately: a phrase that had so often been directed at her, and not as a joke but in deadly earnest, as if somehow her illness had made her permanently feeble in mind and body. Even her brother, who should really know better, still seemed to think of her this way. She was determined to prove him wrong, today as much as any day. 

"I'm going to cool off," she said once they'd finished their food, and rose to her feet. Her sundress lay on the blanket in an instant, revealing a striped bikini. She walked over to the bank of the stream and jumped in, feet first, and submerged herself in the clear, cool water. She let herself drift down on the current for a bit, then swam back upstream. Moving her body in the water, slowly testing its limits, relearning its uses, had given her strength throughout the long weeks and months of recovery. 

She swam to stand in a shallower bit to re-tie her hairband. "Come in," she called to Laertes. She could see that he was watching her. He let his head drop back and sighed. "Just because you asked so nicely." 

He stood up and undressed right down to his boxers. Ophelia watched as he did so, noticing with interest the new muscle that his fencing practice had given him. Taut bands of flesh stood out on his upper arms and shoulders. He jumped in and the water made his boxers cling to his thighs. He stepped into the water with hesitation. He had never been a great swimmer. 

"I'm coming, run away if you can," she teased and launched into a front crawl towards him. He made a few tentative strokes, but he had no chance. She caught him by the shoulders and dragged him under, then released him and they both came up gasping for air. 

She clung to him a little longer than necessary, then fell off with a laugh and a splash. She lunged for him again and this time he caught her in his arms. 

They panted as they looked at one another. Laertes seemed transfixed. Ophelia was suddenly very conscious of the flatness of her chest, of the droplets of water running down her brother's body, of the fact that doing what she had just done – what they were doing now – was not the same thing as it had been just a few summers ago. Change had crept upon them so gradually as to be unnoticeable and now here they were, aware of it; frightened by its possibilities and yet drawn to them irresistibly. 

She saw the darkness in his pupils, saw her own feelings reflected back to her in a distortion mirror. He drew her closer and she moved into the embrace. She felt his face against her neck, his hand trying to find purchase on her wet skin, and then the touch of his lips against her neck. 

She leaned her head to the side to savour the touch. He made an unintelligible sound that she felt as a vibration on her skin, then shifted and leaned his forehead against hers. 

"Such restraint," she whispered. She ran a hand through his hair, then tilted her head upwards, took his face in her hands and kissed him. 

She felt the beat of his eyelashes against her face as he closed his eyes and kissed her back, holding her close. For a moment she was lost. 

He broke the kiss gently and held a hand against her chest. He drew in a breath and then the words tumbled out of his mouth seemingly all at once. 

"You know I would never hurt you, you can't want this, please, are you sure, oh my God..." 

She laid a finger on his lips and kissed his forehead. 

"If you can want it so can I, please, we'll never be like this again, please let me have this." 

She kissed him again and he reciprocated hungrily. "Let us have this." 

And that, it seemed, was all the invitation he needed. He groaned, then wrapped his arms around her and carried her onto dry land. She rolled off him and stretched out on the blanket. He caught her in his arms from behind, held her close, kissed her neck and rubbed against her clumsily. Ophelia closed her eyes as his hands explored her body, first shyly, then more confident as she took his hands, put them in places where she wanted to be touched. 

It overwhelmed her to see her feelings reciprocated. She had fantasised about this, had thought about this in the dark hours and the light ones; about how there had only ever been one person that she'd wanted to do this with for the first time, someone she trusted, who knew everything about her. She was ready to draw a line under her childhood here and now, and maybe, she thought, that would help others not to treat her like a child. 

She turned around to kiss Laertes and felt his fingers slip inside her. She gasped and dug her fingers into his arm. He smiled at her and kissed her face all over as he moved his fingers inside her, his thumb drawing slow small circles on her clit. 

She bit into his t-shirt as she came. Her arms clutched at his sides. "I've got you," she heard him whisper as her body spasmed on the grass. "I've got you." He drove his fingers inside her in a way that made her sigh and sob at the same time. She opened her mouth and he kissed her with abandon. 

Finally, she stilled and he withdrew slowly. He looked at her with the same tenderness that she had seen earlier, at the start of their hike a million years ago. She smiled, kissed his collarbone and reached for him. He was hard in his boxers, she had felt him against her back earlier. She wanted him so much, but not enough to let him inside with no protection. She licked the palm of her hand and began to stroke him. He reacted quickly to her movements, matching her thrusts with his hips, and it didn't take him long to finish. There was something that had been absent from her fantasies, and she couldn't say she cared for it much. But she did care for her brother's expression when he climaxed, for his gasps and his ragged breath on her face, for his intense kisses and for the way he tried to make words in this state which ended up being disjointed sounds that made no sense. 

"You're a marvel," he said. 

"I love you so much," she replied. 

They stayed curled around one another until the sun moved over further and it got too cold for them to stay where they were. Laertes, slightly embarrassed, excused himself to go clean up in the river. 

Ophelia watched him through a haze. How he could ever have thought there was anyone else was beyond her. Hamlet was nice, but he wasn't her brother by a long stretch. 

Laertes turned his back on her, as if that was needed after what they'd just done, then towelled off and put his trousers on, commando style. 

He seemed unable to meet her eyes when he came back and started packing up the remains of the picnic. Ophelia had put on her dress again and was sitting on a corner of the blanket. 

"I have something for you," she said. He turned to her. Whatever words he'd been about to say died on his lips and he sat down like an expectant child. 

Ophelia bent sideways and reached into the backpack. She drew out a flat, rectangular parcel. Laertes' eyes widened. He took it from her gingerly and unwrapped it – and then was silent for a long moment. His eyes were very shiny when he looked up at her again and his voice was a whisper. "Ophelia..." 

She moved over to his corner of the blanket and sat next to him. "I was going to give you real flowers but then I thought, these ones will last longer. There's some explanations on the back, by the way, but I can explain it to you now seeing as I'm here." 

Laertes flipped over the embroidery picture to look at the writing on the back, then turned it back over. Ophelia was pleased to see her work out here in the sunlight. She had spent hours and hours of stitching flower shapes onto the white cloth with brightly coloured threads, and now they seemed to come to brilliant life here in the sunshine. 

"There's rosemary there, for memory, and pansies for thoughts," she recited, pointing her finger at the relevant plants. "So you remember me, and so you see that I am thinking of you. And that's fennel, here, for strength – and violets here, for faithfulness." 

Laertes' voice was a whisper. "Oh my God." He ran his hand across the picture as if he were stroking a small animal. He put the picture down carefully, then put one arm around Ophelia and drew her towards him. "Thank you," he said and kissed her again. 

He wanted to freeze the afternoon in time, preserve it separate from everything else to do with Ophelia; separate from Pol and Hamlet and his parents, separate from promises of marriage and contracts made in their names before they had so much as taken their first breath of air. He wanted to move forward in time, move away from here and start something new, but as he looked at Ophelia, now getting ready to wander home, looking for all the world as if nothing at all had happened today, he felt that there was something dark here in Elsinore, something underneath all the beauty of nature and man-made structures, that would pull them back eventually to an uncertain fate. 

He picked up the last traces that they had ever been here and followed Ophelia out of the woods, determined to fight this force for as long as he could.


End file.
